Page 37 of Thaddeus

“No. We were told the meeting was taking place upstairs,” Declan reminded me.

“Right. Okay, so maybe that man, Leon, took the girls and Jefferson’s boat?”

“Doubtful. The man we’re after isn’t in the sex trafficking business,” Brooks denied.

“Then why was he meeting with Jefferson? The man either dealt in flesh, drugs, or guns. Jefferson wouldn’t waste his time on a friendly chat. Especially not at a fight. He liked to watch his dogs in action. If he was meeting with this Leon Brown during the main event when his prized pit bull, Brutus, was fighting, it was because whatever Leon was offering meant Jefferson would stand to make money—and lots of it.”

I glanced around at the scattered pictures that were on the coffee table in front of me and bent to pick one up.

“Why do you have a picture of Jefferson’s tattoo?” I asked.

I looked closer and realized the artwork was the same but the location was wrong.

Thad

“Garcia has that tattoo?” I asked.

“Yeah, but this isn’t a picture of Jefferson.” She waved the five-by-seven image. “His was on his stomach.”

I didn’t want to think about Emerson looking at Garcia’s bare torso. Not even in the most abstract of ways. I’d actually liked to forget entirely that she’d spent time with him in general.

“Did he tell you what it meant?” Declan inquired.

“No. I asked, but when I did, he told me he’d tell me only after I told him what the tattoo on my back meant.”

Emerson looked like she wished she could suck the words back in. I wished she could’ve, too. I was actively pretending my name wasn’t on her skin, and much like Garcia, I wanted to know what it meant even if I didn’t want to acknowledge its existence.

“What about Omni? Did he ever mention them?”

“Who?”

Fuck, so that was a no.

Declan’s phone rang and he fished it out of his back pocket, checked the screen, and left the room.

“When you worked for Brown, did you ever run any sex trafficking cases?” Brooks asked Tatiana.

“No.” She shook her head.

“You worked for this man? The one you’re looking for now? The same one who was supposed to meet with Jefferson?” Emerson asked wide-eyed.

“Yeah. He was my handler.”

“What does that mean?”

Before anyone could stop Tatiana, she explained how she’d come to be employed by The Company and that Brown had been her point of contact—her handler. But Leon had turned on Tatiana and set her up, almost killing her and Brooks while they were on a recon mission. She also told Emerson that she was former CIA.

“So, he doesn’t work for the CIA?” Emerson asked, confused.

Yeah, that makes all of us, agápi mou, and none of us liked loose ends. Brown was more than that, he was a danger to all of us.

Declan came back into the living room with his phone still at his ear. “Emerson, did Garcia ever mention a place in Mabaruma?” he asked.

“Yeah. It’s in Guyana. He has a camp there where he trains dogs,” she confirmed.

“Did you hear that?” He went back to his phone conversation. “Have you been there?” His gaze on Emerson.

“Yes, once.”